Weathering the - quite literal - ice storm without much effort, Camelia peeked from behind her shield again. Damn. The match hadn't stopped and her opponent was still hanging on (presumably) for dear life. This called for some more... involved measures.

For the first few instants, nothing changed. After about half a second, the well slowly accelerated, although all that could be seen was that the raging ball of ice shards, chunks and other partially lethal paraphernalia was moving; the well itself was obscured. Nevertheless, it began making steady progress towards Camelia's target, closing in the gap at the blistering speed of half a foot a second, ripping up more of the floor as its tidal forces pulled on undamaged portions. Still concentrating, she began preparing to launch it towards the enemy if they made an escape attempt.

At the mention of a card game he'd neither heard of or played before, Nathan's face became completely and utterly neutral. What the hell was thirty-one? Was it anything like twenty-one/blackjack? Why was Kin nibbling on a muffin like a rodent nibbles on a wad of cheese?

He turned to Izzy as, incidentally, the latter turned to Nathan and was met with an exceedingly familiar look - his own face was probably sporting a similar expression, right down to the mask's stillness. His teammate's eyes were a dead giveaway, though. As he appeared to... resign? himself to his fate, he moved towards the others. Nathan, on the other hand, didn't move from his chair (and also didn't move his chair), in true Nathan fashion.

I don't know about the smith thing, but Nathan's (my character) semblance was hidden from basically everyone but his teammates until he participated in the Vytal Festival tournament. So yes, as long as they're secretive enough about it and depending on the semblance's nature, it's entirely feasible to keep it a secret. Same goes for weapons.

Camelia briefly peeked out from behind Orion, just to check how everything was going. It took more than just a glance, though, since the amount of concentration she had to use to keep the well active was no joke. Hmm. Seemed like the enemy was definitely caught, at least.

With a resounding crack that reverberated throughout the ice section of the arena, enough that Camelia felt it in her feet, the pillar snapped close to its base and didn't just fall, but accelerated towards the cause of its toppling. After reaching speeds which, simply put, are just too damn high for something so large, it turned into several tons of ice shards in mere moments as the tidal forces shredded it apart, sending most of it back out as a uniform, spherical(ish) explosion of the entire pillar's worth in ice shrapnel.

(Ongoing gravity well, -20% if hit by the pillar on its way down, -however many % due to a wall of ice shrapnel)

Well, as far as I know (I'm not a good reference), continuous dodging to the point of improbability (even in the RWBYVerse) is considered a form of metagaming, which goes against the rules. So it's more about group consensus of "is this bullshit" than an action-specific check like in DnD.

In truth, Brock was mildly flattered to hear that his judgment - or lack thereof, as a matter of fact - had been correct. Had to that Janna's compliment as to his destructive effectiveness and the food hill set before him began to diminish at an even faster rate, both mesmerizing and alarming. An unwary onlooker could've confused Brock with some sort of very quiet vacuum.

Being sat opposite to the (two smallest) girls, even with his towering height, he was thoroughly unable to sneak a peek at the strategy notebook his new teammate handed over to his leader. Janna's comment, on the other hand, caused him to pause his calorie intake and briefly look at the others' fielded rations. He gave up after a heartbeat or two, though, realizing he had no idea what was "normal" to eat for a given person.

In the most usual fashion, Nathan had almost completely erased his presence and was dutifully listening to his teammates. No, it wasn't entirely intentional. He was just a quiet type and a good listener, which apparently made him casually stealthy. Still, this was a good thing. People were getting to know each other without trying to embed themselves into the floor or anything, so seems like his idea was a good one. Yuss.

However, it took a few moments for Nathan's mind to realize Kin had asked him a question but his train of thought eventually lurched into another gear. "Oh, uh, I'm pretty flexible on likes. Most foodstuffs I'll like, unless the texture makes me gag. Which includes most fruits. On the animal end, I like pretty much everything; from cats to dogs as well as arachnids, cetaceans, slithering friends, etc. Even gastropods, though only looking, thank you."

Damn him and his concise nature. Pretty sure Kisha could've stretched that at least five times longer.

As she focused on the task at hand, Camelia was barely aware of her surroundings, save for the fact that she was slowly and steadily inching forward with as solid a stance as she could maintain while crouched behind Orion. She didn't have too long left, eith---

With a loud clang that briefly reverberated onto the frozen surroundings, the shield shielded its owner from a shockwave, her solid since helping to diffuse the impact. Incidentally, the wait was now over.

The purple sphere hovering in the air turned almost opaque and, with a roar, sent the local gravity haywire. Air rushed while the ice floor cracked and broke apart, shards of all shapes and sizes ripped out of it by the tidal forces. Everything close by was being dragged towards the epicenter. The closest pillar emitted a loud, cracking noise as its stability became severely compromised. All Camelia did was stop moving forward and hunker down under the cover of the large, circular metal assembly that was her rampart from unmitigated chaos.

Good news! Her enemy was still under the effect of her semblance. Bad news; she had good instincts. Maybe Camelia was a bit too used to her semblance's preliminary signs? She even heard the girl say 'nope' before using all of her chains to slowly drag herself away.

Dammit. Her semblance was already really close to its maximum range and with how much she had to concentrate for a gravity well, she could only inch closer. It wasn't much, but it might just give her those few precious instants she needed. Once she had it going, it'd be her win.

As her semblance activated and Unity came crashing down onto her opponent, Camelia was content with her strike - a fleeting emotion if there ever was one, as it disappeared the moment she noticed the chainblade's hilt touching her, right beneath Orion. It was too late to react.

A moment later, an incredibly powerful detonation occurred, sending Camelia flying into a nearby pillar and nearly - nearly - making her lose focus of her semblance, causing the field to flicker for an instant. Thankfully, she'd learned to manipulate momentum to her advantage while in freefall and was able to orient Orion towards the prograde direction, crashing right through an ice pillar before receiving herself with a rapid roll.

That HURT. A lot. But hey, good news! Wait, no, bad news. The enemy had gotten serious. Now, Cammie wasn't one to just take it - she'd give it her all too. Crouching behind her shield, she started charging a gravity well - right at the chain-squid's location, a sphere about a foot in diameter turning a dark purple around her waist.

Camelia was now right besides the gravity zone encompassing her opponent. The burst was still charging. She prepared a strike, aiming to-

- Aaaaaah, fuck. This was unpleasant. The chains had come around her back again but this time, she'd tried to yank her arms up. Thankfully, she'd only partially succeeded, leaving Camelia in an odd position where her elbows were lifted. The arm carrying Orion hadn't risen too much due to the shield's sheer weight, but it still made her uncomfortably exposed.

Using all her strength, she brought it back down as fast as she could while bringing the half of Unity she was currently wielding onto her enemy, the haphazard (due to previous meddling by a certain individual's supplementary limbs) downwards swing coincided with the sudden resurgence of color surrounding her target.

(Sam's immediate surroundings are now under an additional 6.6 g for 0.5 seconds, for a total of 8.6 g; ~6% inherent damage +6 or so % if she has a bad fall/12% if she falls and hits her head on the ground, 8% sword strike with +15% gravity assist)

Having kept an eye out for all of her opponent's limbs, Camelia was able to dodge the chains coming at her back relatively easily. However, her enemy's main weapon proved much harder to fend off - even though she swung Orion into the attack to deflect it, she wound up knocked around a bit, the chain-wielder not only successfully closing in but also escaping her previously charging burst zone.

Not one to give up easily, she let go of her currently-charging burst and started another one at her target's new location. Everything wasn't so bad, though; she was still under 2 g and, added bonus, was now almost close enough to strike directly. Camelia approached further.